Losing Bliss
by Rena Redhead
Summary: For a while, he could ignore it, remain ignorant, try to kid himself over what had happened, what Shizuka had done. But not tonight and never again.


**Disclaimer:** Oh how I wished I owned this series, but alas, I do not. I shall instead turn to writing fan fiction about it. :)

**Author's Note:** So… . . Another one-shot! Yes, I've been having fun with being able to write short stories lately. With that comes my first fan fic for "Vampire Knight", which makes me very happy, since I've wanted to try my hand at this series for a while. This is set shortly after Zero's parents are killed and I think that's all you really need to know. Ladies and Gents', I present, "Losing Bliss"!

-VK-

**Losing Bliss**

Sometimes, when the scent reaches me, I can remember Shizuka's breath on my neck, as she panted after having a good long drink. It was the first time I could smell blood and pick it apart from every other smell. But at the moment, my own body burned and I couldn't think straight. So even though I could smell my own blood, my parents' blood, it wasn't like I could really react other than acknowledge mentally that I could.

That whole night is often muddled with fragments of memories, sensations. Other times, it's as clear as water. Not that I want it to be.

I can remember being found on the ground by the Hunters and eventually taken to the Headmaster's home, meeting her. Though I was still out of it, I can remember some things of what happened, feelings I had after Headmaster Cross left. I remember Yuki cleaning my shoulder and neck and for the first time, realizing there was no wound left. It was gone. And then I wondered, "What happened to me?"

-VK-

The wind rattled the frames of the windows. It wasn't scary, just annoying. The eleven year old continued to wait. He held a towel in his hands. It was pink. Cross hadn't had the chance to get him a decent set of towels yet. So he was currently sharing with Yuki. Zero sat down, listening to the sound of the shower running. At this rate, she'd use up all the hot water, leaving him with a cold one. He pouted. It would have been cute if not for the death glare that was associated with it.

"Ah, Zero."

Zero looked up to see Headmaster Cross coming in, "You next in the line for the shower?"

Zero said nothing. That should have been enough for an answer and a warning to leave. The Cross smiled and wagged his finger at Zero.

"Now, now, Zero, you can't get rid of me that easily," He taunted, "Besides, I had a favor to ask you."

The kid looked up impatiently as he continued, "Would you mind letting me cut in front of you? I have an important meeting to go to and I really do need…"

"_**NO!"**_

The Headmaster quickly moved to the opposite side of the room, cowering slightly. It had been one of the first times Zero had said anything and never had he ever said anything so loudly… or forcefully.

"Okay, okay! It's all yours! I promise!" Cross quickly told the angry kid across the way.

Zero continued to glare until he heard the shower start to turn off. Cross looked over as well.

"Yuuuuki!" He called, "Is daddy's little girl done?"

"Almost! I just want to dry off and try out the lotion you got me!" She called from inside.

The Headmaster smiled and brought his hands to his face, "Oh! Yuki, you're so adorable! Come out soon, ok?"

"Alright!" She called.

Finally. Zero looked over at the door. The steam seemed to have slowed in its flow of coming out from under the door. Just a few more minutes… He heard Yuki grunt inside. He heard her do it again and then the squeak of a cap not quite coming off. Cross heard it as well and turned around.

"Do you need help with that, Yuki?" He asked.

"No, I'm ok! The lid's just on tight, that's all… Ah!"

Suddenly, the crashing sound of glass shattering could be heard beyond the door to the bathroom as well as the sound of a gasp from Yuki.

_Ba-dum._

"Yuki? What happened?" The Headmaster asked. He tried to twist the doorknob but it was locked.

Suddenly, the whole room, it seemed… black… and white… Zero froze in his place, his eyes open and alert, though he still didn't move. The only thing he did was breathe in the scent through his nose ever so slowly. It was so…mesmerizing… His eyes darted about, looking for it. He saw glimpses of what it might be coming from, bits of red…

"Hold on Yuki! Don't move, Daddy's got the key here somewhere!"

He looked down at the towel, which moments ago had only been pink. This time it was red. Zero swallowed and breathed in a gulp of air only to stutter in breathing, rather than taking in the air freely. It was so _close…_

_Ba-dum._

The sound of a key going into the slot and turning registered in Zero's brain, but barely. Where was it? Then the door opened and he got a full whiff of it. It smelled like sweet iron, sweet… delicious. His mouth began to water. He was craving… He looked over to the Headmaster who had run inside the bathroom and was on the floor next to Yuki. He could see Yuki looking at Cross. Neither of them had noticed him. But he hadn't blinked. He could see trails of red throughout the mess, and then a trickle of it spilling from Yuki's ankle and foot.

_Ba-dum. Ba-dum._

There it was. _There…_

Zero gasped, suddenly realizing his breathing pattern wasn't giving him enough oxygen. And with the gasp came another sweet, _sweet_ aroma. His heart beat rapidly. How he wanted… A pain shot through his jaw. Zero shook his head holding his mouth. It cleared his mind momentarily. _What was he thinking?_

Yuki and Cross heard a clatter of the chair Zero had been sitting in fall to the floor just in time to see Zero bolt from the room. Yuki looked on confused and then noticed she was still bleeding. Maybe he was remembering when his parents died. There must have been a lot of blood… Cross's lips tightened.

The front door slammed open and Zero bolted from the house into the snow. The pain in his jaw was intensifying. Like some sort of pressure was pushing against his teeth. His heart was racing, attempting to keep up with his behavior... and fuel his desire… It pounded the blood through him and all the while, in the back of his mind, he kept thinking how much he wanted to turn and go back for it...

His shoulders started to lose sensation and he suddenly felt like he was lacking something in his chest, in his body, like every muscle in him was falling in on itself. He grasped himself and soon felt the energy leave his legs, and he shook involuntarily. He collapsed in the snow, his thin white T providing him no protection and his black jeans doing hardly anything for him either, though that didn't really register at this point. His jaw was in agony right now. He screamed and it pierced the howling of the falling snow. Why… what was… he shouldn't have left… He _needed_ it! A red glow emanated from his eyes, which matched his craving in color too. Why couldn't he see any color other than red?

He shut his eyes and somehow managed to bring a hand up to his mouth. It hurt. Why was it...? Suddenly, he felt something move in his mouth, under his gums. He gasped and cried out. What was… He felt his teeth being pushed against the root. It felt like it was being pinched. Hard. But it wasn't all of his teeth. Just two. Tears started to flow from his eyes, it was blinding sensation, a burning one…

Footsteps came from somewhere as well as someone calling his name, "Zero? Zero? Zero!"

He felt someone holding him by the shoulders and lifting him into a sitting position, but he couldn't tell who it was. He felt like he was going to choke. He rolled to his side in the person's grasp and managed to yell. He coughed and felt something push his two teeth forcefully, all at once, out of place. They hung from bits of his gums as two replacements eased their way into place. Finally, the two teeth, what should have been part of his adult set, fell from his mouth into the snow.

He choked out the saliva that had gathered in his mouth, covering his way of breathing and any passage of his own blood that had accumulated as well that might have made its way down his throat, possibly relieving him. But it never got that chance. His gums healed in a matter of seconds, the new teeth there as though they always had been. And yet through all that, through the excruciating pain that had accumulated in his mouth and the rest of his body in a matter of minutes, he still felt empty, without supplement, without fill. Dead.

He dug his nails into the palms of his hands, with what little strength he had left. _Where was it?_ Where did it go? Why was he…? And then he felt the immediate urge leave him and he was left with a feeling of sickness in his stomach for not satisfying the urge to go back to Yuki and what had been on the floor of the bathroom. What was worse was his sanity returning to him and his realizing how much he was shaking from his want, his craving, not just the pain. He had… been wanting it… It sunk into his head what he had wanted.

_What had he been thinking?_

Zero's eyes opened and he stared off into space. Blood. He had wanted it so badly. He hadn't cared where or who it came from. He just had to have it. He stiffened and suddenly, the icy feeling of the snow against his bare feet made him shiver. The Headmaster pulled him up into a sitting position again.

"Zero, are you alright?" He asked.

Zero couldn't respond, he just continued to breathe rapidly, as his chest still rose and fell. If possible, he was beginning to feel sicker than before. He then bit his lip, but stopped. Something… He looked up at Cross whose eyes were on him still and then slowly, brought a hand up to his mouth, touching the two new canine teeth. They were longer than his adult teeth. Abnormally longer. But what was worse was the sharpness they had to them on the sides and at the tip. Like a knife. Suddenly he began to quiver and shake his head violently in Cross's grip.

"No…" The Headmaster looked down at Zero as Zero caught sight of him, "No… no, no, no!"

The boy screamed. He cried. His nightmare, he had been able to ignore it up until this point. The one and only night that anything abnormal about him had been exhibited was on the night his parents had died and that had been a night of trauma. It was hard for him to believe that it had even happened. He knew it did, but still it was easy to chalk it up to shock. Not tonight. It had been so simple. Yuki had dropped the glass jar and cut her foot and ankle. And he had wanted it. The blood. Her blood. The thirst for that ecstasy had overtaken all of his senses… And now, there was no way to deny it. They'd come, those two teeth that were used for killing people. For his desire…

He gasped, grabbing his head. _No! _He couldn't be thinking like that! Like those scum! Like those monsters! What kind of… He felt his new teeth touching the inside of his mouth and he curled up further. No! He wanted them to go away. _Why couldn't they just go away?_ And why did his chest continue to hurt and his pulse seem so slow… The fragrance was gone… Why was it gon…?

_How could he be thinking like this?Why?_

Cross looked down at Zero, who seemed to be losing his sanity at the revelation of his new vampire teeth. He let out a breath. He pulled out a pack of what might have held gum. But instead, he popped out a tablet and put the pack back into his pocket. In his hand, he scoped up a bit of snow and held it in his hand, letting it melt so that the tablet would dissolve.

"Zero," Cross said, "Here, it will help."

Zero looked up at Cross and then at Cross's hand. The red! He sniffed it a bit from where he was. It wasn't the same thing, but it could… like diet sodas. Just without the sugar. The iron was fake, or rather processed… But still! It was right there! The red… It hit him what he was doing. He knocked Cross's hand away, the blood tablet and water gone. No! He couldn't, how could he have even wanted… He crawled away, barely able to produce the energy to do so. He bent his head down, his mouth open. The tips of his new teeth were cold and they made his back shudder.

Cross watched as suddenly, he saw Zero searching the snow. Where were they? Where were they? The last signs that he wasn't one of those things…Cross walked up to Zero and knelt down again.

"Zero, stop," He said.

"No!" Zero said, frantically, "I don't need your help."

"Zero, even if you find them, they won't…"

"Shut up!" Zero said, suddenly focused on Cross.

"They can't! They have to be somewhere. I can't…" He stuttered, "I can't live with these things!"

"Zero," Cross said, "Even if you were to rip those teeth out of your jaw, it wouldn't change anything. Neither would attempting to put your old teeth back in."

"I was human!" Zero yelled and for a moment, there was silence save for the wind blowing the snow, "Why?"

He grabbed Cross's pant legs, "Why are these here? Why can I smell it? I'm not, I wasn't… I wasn't born to be like this! I'm not… I shouldn't… I keep thinking about…"

Zero's grasp loosened… "I, I'm a monster…"

Two tears fell down the side of Zero's face. Cross brought Zero close and held him. He let the child rest. Eventually, he could tell Zero was losing his energy. He picked him up and started walking back to the house.

"You're not a monster Zero," He said, calmly.

"Headmaster," Zero whispered, "I'm not… I _wanted_ blood…in a one track mind set… just stuck on it. Like, like an animal… I wanted Yuki's blood. How can you… How can you say I'm not a monster?"

Cross was silent for a moment, "You have a good heart. No monster has that."

He didn't understand how Cross could say something like that. It didn't feel like it was that simple. How he was now, what had made it's presence known tonight... He had to control it. He couldn't keep thinking like that. He had to fight it. He had to… A light appeared in front of them and Zero looked up. At the door to the house, Yuki looked out at both of them. Relief swept over her and she ran out towards them. Zero tensed. Please… Not the smell… not the…

"Zero! Headmaster! Is Zero… Are you okay, Zero?" She asked.

Cross looked down at Zero who kept his mouth shut and his eyes away from Yuki's. Though through the look in the corner of Zero's eyes, Cross could tell Zero was okay. Somehow, Zero knew it too. The smell was old and caked. She had bandaged up her foot. Still… He wanted to stay away from her tonight.

"He'll be alright," Cross told her, "He just recalled his memories from a few months back."

Zero's neck muscles tightened. He brought a hand up to that spot. Somehow though, he managed to tell her…

"I'm fine, Yuki."

Yuki looked at Zero. Despite not catching his eyes, she nodded.

"That's good, Zero," She said, smiling softly.

He looked at her and swallowed. He turned away again. From there, the Headmaster took Zero to a room across the way. He laid out a change of dry clothes and left him be for the night. He rolled to the other side and remembered her face. And that _woman's_ face. He shut his eyes tightly and tried to ignore the memory of her teeth sinking into his neck that was resurfacing…

Zero's eyes opened ever so slightly. The only problem was that now he couldn't ignore what she had done. The sharp canines in his mouth refused to let him do that. He shut his eyes. At least he hadn't done anything. At least…

He thought of his mother and father and seeing their blood. Something, something he now lusted after, as the creature that he hated above all others…

That was the first night he distinctly could remember thirsting for it, for that ever present life force, blood.

He truly was one of those things.

A vampire.

-VK-

**A/N:** So? What do you think? I'm not sure if this has been done already, I haven't had the chance to read much in terms of fan fiction since before I started reading Vampire Knight, but I hope something in it made it worth reading. Please review! I had felt like the change might have happened over some time as Zero was still growing up in many ways. So yeah, it really was way too much fun to write this. :) Zero just makes me want to hug him sometimes, too. Oh! I picked the title based off the phrase 'ignorance is bliss' as often, I've thought Zero might rather like to live without knowing what he is, since accepting it at times seems like half the battle for him. I might do more of Vampire Knight in the future, not sure yet, but this was certainly fun to write. But yeah, anyway, I hope you liked it! Thank you for reading and stay awesome! Later!

~Rena


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